Intertwined
by magicmumu
Summary: Emily becomes the newest resident in Halloweentown, where a case of missing limbs brings to her meet Sally. Rated for some gore, and Femslash! Sally/Emily


Intertwined

by Erin Griffin and Ry_Rain

Fandom: The Nightmate Before Christmas/The Corpse Bride crossover

Pairing: Sally/Emily

Disclaimer: These characters both belong to Tim Burton and other people who aren't me.

AN: I want to thank Ry_Rain for helping me get this story out. Also, I think I might have found a new OTP.

Sally searched the gravyard over and over again, hoping she could find her arm. It was in a mood lately, restless. More times than she would care to admit, she caught it moving about, tapping on everything, and she wasn't sure why. There was no way she was going back to Dr. Finklstien. It wasn't that she feared being captured again as he was now busy with his newest creation. Being near him brought back bad memories. Not nightmarish memories, those she cherished, but the kind she never wanted to think on again. As the redhead continued her search, hoping it was buried near Zero's grave again and couldn't dig itself out, she heard movement. She followed it, hoping that was where her arm had gone. Then, there she was, a woman rotten to the bone, her flesh hanging away from her, her wedding gown in complete tatters. A worm stuck out of her ear, muttering back at her as this new woman seemed to be in search of something. Sally studied her. She had never seen her before, and it wasn't often that Halloween got new ghouls and corpses as residences. The redhead noticed that this woman's hand was missing as well. 'What have you been up to, Zero?' Sally wondered to herself. The new woman saw Sally before she could make the first move towards her. 'Perhaps in her own search she had come across mt arm, and I would know to keep a look out for her missing hand,' Sally thought.

"Um- hi, excuse me!" she called. Sally gave her a smile so wide that some of her stitching came undone. The redhead put a hand to her mouth in slight embaressment, but the newcomer only returned the smile. "Hi, I'm looking for my hand. It just got a little excited and... ran off!" Sally couldn't reply at first, too stunned was she. "Oh, cat got your tounge? I saw one a few minutes ago. I wondered what that was in its mouth..."

Sally giggled. "No, I can speak, I just.. I have never seen you before. Oh dear, that must have sounded rude of me."

The rotted woman laughed, a sound that made Sally's stuffing fall out of her shoulder. She bent down to grasp desperately for the dried leaves that she'd used, and saw a cold blue hand join her own in putting her stuffing back in place. At one point, they bumped heads, causing the woman's eye to fall out. The hand quickly went to her eye socket, where the same worm peeked out sleepily, and Sally hurried to grab ahold of it. She plucked one of her own dried leaves from it with her mouth, then handed the eye to the other woman as a child would hand their teacher a rotten apple core on the first day of school. "Thank you. I am new. Well, that is rather... rather obvious. I just... Well, one minute I am in the Land of the Living, and then I... I changed into butterflies, and I thought I was moving on to heaven. I felt at peace, like I was going somewhere that would make me happy. And then I ended up here."

"Well, the people here seem happy," Sally offered, which earned her a small, yet uncertain smile in return. Sally turned away from the corpse bride then, her own faultered steps seeming so strange and rickety compared to Emily's silent gliding. "Come on, I think I know where our limbs might be. I'm Sally, by the way," she said over her shoulder.

"My name's Emily."

It was really a nice night to be out walking. She could hear the werewolve's howling in the distance and the vampires flying overhead in bat form, obstructing the pale moonlight for a fraction of a second. Emily remained either at her side or slightly behind her as they made their way further in. The ghosts wailed to her in greeting, and the jackolanterns' eyes glowed bright and hot as they walked by. Sally waved back to them in her gratitude, appretiative of their lighting the way when the trees overhead became thicker and the moon was nowhere to be seen. There was the sound of bones and twigs crunching under her feet, and she felt lighter that night than she had since she was with Jack. Sally and Emily spoke about the people in Halloweentown, who was the most frightening, who was downright scary, and who was to be avoided at all cost. With Oogie Boogie out of the picture, things were relatively unpleasent in Halloweentown, and she was sure that Emily would learn to love it there. Emily in turn, told her more about the situation which brought her there to begin with.

Many minutes later, they found Zero's headstone and Sally tapped on it. "Zero!" she called. When there was no response, she figured that Zero was at Jack's side as usual, and she wasn't sure she wanted to go to him just yet. Their break up still hurt, but not in the way of disembowlment. It had been the same old thing with Jack, always wanting more, wanting better things, and often, she felt she couldn't be those better things for him. It was so hard to stay at his side while he spent days locked in his home, never eating or sleeping while he tried to make Halloween that much grander. Though Jack would always be dear to Sally, she felt she had to let him go. She didn't want to feel like she had been holding him back.

Sally looked around for fresh burial sights near the grave, and started to dig once she found one. There was one of Jack's rib bones with many teeth mark's in it, as well as a shrunken head, which started to breathe in earnest now that it was out of the dirt. "Thank you," it said in a low voice too big for the size, "you can just throw me over there." Sally did so, twirling it by its hair before she sent it flying. She looked a little further in the hole only to find a red hat that Sandy Claws wore. It was wet and moldy from when there had been snow all over the ground. That had been quite some time ago, which told the redhead just how long it had been buried there.

Sally shook her head. "I guess they aren't here, none of them," she reported with an apologetic shrug. Emily smiled to let her know that it was alright. "We should head back towards the town square to retrace our steps." She made a motion for them to start heading back. They followed Sally's footsteps in the damp grass and dirt as they took their time back. Sally told her about Sandy Claws, and the adventure Jack and she had been on, and Emily told her more about the Land of the Living and the Land of the Dead. Sally was fascenated. An icy wind howled around them, and Sally shivered in excitedment while Emily's shivers were because of the cold. Sally felt the tattered veil whip across her face, and she turned to look at her walking companion. Once they finally got out of the vast cemetary, they made their way along the bricked roads towards the town square. Sally was surprised not to see the trio of street performers like she always did. In fact, it seemed as if the whole town was locked away in their homes in fear. She wondered what exciting thing would make that happen, and felt almost disappointed that she and Emily had missed it.

Then she heard it, music. Emily gasped. "My hand! It must be there! I know that song even without thinking about it."

"Well, that's a start," Sally replied as her footsteps got louder in the silent night. Leaves and dirt flew past them as if to lead the way towards the music hall. There, she saw many of the towns people spilling out of the door, and the piano music got louder, so they knew they were in the right spot. "Your hand must be talented to play like that."

Emily was confused. "No, it has to have a partner, but who-"

"Sally! Amazing work!" the mayor's happy face declared, before it twisted around to show its sad side. "So haunting, the pain, the loneliness.." it said.

Sally was confused now, and she looked to Emily quickly. Surely her hand wasn't making that music. She had never played the piano at all since she was created. She pushed gently past him and many others. As they went past people, Sally saw the looks of envy and fear as they looked at Emily. "Why, she's absolutely disgusting," one witch said in awe as Sally walked by with the corpse bride, and she silently had to agree. Emily had proven to be so disgusting and fascinating with her horrid tales. Out of habit, Sally ducked when she passed Dr. Finklestein, even though he was busy looking at his newest creation, his female self, as it were.

"Its- Its different..." Emily said, her voice hushed as if too frightened to speak. They continued past the onlookers until there, Sally saw her own arm on the piano stool with stuffing and thread spilling around it, while her hand danced along the keys with a bluish skeletal hand. Both sets of fingers moved so fast, yet so in sync, and the redhead was certain that her hand was dancing with the other. A few times as the hands inched closer while they played this new tune she hadn't ever heard before, she saw the thumb fingers link as they played together, and then unhook to move across to their own respective scales.

"There you are!" Sally said, her tone scolding as she finally made it to the front of the crowd, narrowly missing the faceless clown on the unicycle. She never did learn his name in the time she'd lived there. Sally's hand stilled, fingers splayed out as it froze in fear of getting caught. There was a large *PLUNK* of discorded sound from the lower scale, which stopped Emily's hand as well. Sally began to walk forward, but that only made her hand bolt across the keys towards Emily's skeletal hand, and together they scurried off, Emily and Sally in hot persuit.

"Oh, come back here, you!" Emily cried, as she glided over the crowd, who gasped in awe and trembled. Sally hurried after them, chasing the limbs around the room as if after chickens with their heads cut off. Finally, the two hands were cornered, and as Emily dove down to grab her hand, the two hands grasped onto eachother, their fingers interlocking tightly. Sally was attempting to sew her forarm and bicep on as she watched. As soon as she was ready, she took her hand while Emily took her own, and they tried to pry them apart, like snapping a wishbone, but niether would budge.

"If you're going to be that way," Sally said. Sally struggled, but decided to start sewing her hand back at the wrist. Emily came forward and helped her by holding a peice of the hems together. It was easier for Sally, and the threading was stronger. "Thank you," she said, as soon as she got her hand back on. Still, the hands refused to let go, and Sally wondered what had gotten into her own hand for it to act this way.

"Here," Emily said. She took her hand with the other rotten fleshy one, and guided it back into the socket with a noisy rattle and pop. As soon as she did this, she could feel Sally's hand in her own. A feeling washed over her, so similar to how she felt when she was ascending into the sky as a flurry of butterflies. Her eyes moved upwards from their fingers to their wrists, up the arm of the woman beside her. She admired the stitching around the red lips and the brightness of Sally's eyes, the length of her eyelashes and the red of her hair, which seemed made from the same material as her lips. She couldn't deny the woman's distorted beauty, and she wondered if this right here was where she was meant to be, where she could remain happy. It was this thought that made her glad she was a new resident of Halloweentown.


End file.
